Hot & Spicy

We went out to dinner with Lilan, Jackie and Bart from the International Office last night. By the way, sorry for cutting your face off, Rob. I wasn't drunk. I think I was just so excited about the food. Anyhoo, these nice new friends are an important part of our support system here and they have been great at getting our problems resolved.

Lilan picked Rob, Don and me up after class and drove us to a nice Sichuan restaurant in a part of Jinan that we hadn’t been to yet. It’s nice to get out of our small comfort zone. We are getting more familiar with our little area of the city but even in our neighbourhood, there are still many more things to discover.

Sichuan food is famous for its spiciness and the dishes we had last night did not disappoint. Lilan ordered a few of the most popular for us to try. There were 2 huge pots of shuizhu yu (boiled fish in a fiery sauce or oil with lots of peppers and spices), gongbao jiding (spicy chicken with peanuts), ganbian sijidou (dry-fried green beans), a dish with a variety of seafood, tripe and other ingredients in a broth, and a fried corn dish. It was all very tasty. Rob & Don had some surprising numbing effects from the Sichuan peppercorns after chewing them on purpose and then enjoyed the aftertaste of detergent. Bart said, when he noticed Don doing it, that people don't normally eat them. A little too late :(

A couple of things I am noticing here about dining out. First of all, you have to bring your own serviettes usually so everyone carries little packets of tissue that often doubles for serviettes or toilet paper. Lilan says you can buy the packets at that restaurant. The other thing here is that rice is not offered unless you ask and you only really ask at the end of the meal if you are still hungry. None of this getting full on rice, just the good stuff!

J